COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTIONBottle conditioned.
Saison Dupont is a classic Belgian farmhouse ale. This is a beautifully balanced, complex beer that has a refreshing fruitiness and long, dry finish. It is bottled unfiltered so it may be cloudy or have a slight sediment but this is normal and perfectly natural.

330ml bottle from Masuyo in Asagaya, Tokyo. Poured into a snifter. Gorgeous hazy orange blonde color with a nice frothy off-white head that hangs around for most of the beer. Spectacular lacing throughout. Strong barnyard, wet straw, murky cellar, and fallen trees covered with moss after a light rain aromas present. A bit of papaya, coriander, cinnamon and peppercorns present as it warms to room temperature. There is a beautiful sour undertone throughout that becomes more prevalent after coming to room temperature as well. Mostly sour and peppery on the palate with an underlying fruit sweetness albeit minor. Long dry, peppery finish with a sour start. Superb farmhouse ale.

Tap. A strange combination of sour beer, a lager and some hoppy ale. Slightly cloudy, pale golde with frothy head. Beautiful lacing. Aroma of banana, orange, lemon and yeast. Mixed feelings. Expected much more WOW effect. Should try it in a bottle.

UPDATED: FEB 13, 2015 Originally called Saison Dupont Vieille Provision, this classic beer can be regarded as the archetypical saison; fell in love with it more than a decade ago, so time to revisit. Hazy orangey blonde colour under a dense, moussy, off-white, extremely stable head - I recall leaving a glass unattended for over an hour, coming back and finding its head still firmly sitting over the beer, as if nothing had happened. Aroma of all the ’barnyard’ things one would expect from the style: wet hay, rotting grass, fried egg, green pear, damp cellar, yoghurt, prosecco, vanilla, bitter honey, sweat, lemon zest, fish fumet, peanuts, green beans, weeds, apricot, gooseberry and - to my surprise - a faint hint of H2S. Vivid, crisp and complex onset of sour berries, crabapple, refinedly sweet melon, vanilla and mango, with a sharp, minerally carbonation and a relatively strong sourish flavour of dried lemon peel; apart from the shy, brief honeyish sweetishness opening the palate, this is dry from the start, evolving into a rich and complex ’Belgian’ yeastiness with white pepper and dried ginger all around (though no spices have effectively been used). Towards the finish, it becomes even more dry, when the drying sourishness from the onset gets the assistance of a firm, drying, leafy, herbal, peppery hop bitterness and a slight hint of warming, ’jenever’-like alcohol. Generally speaking, this is the climax of quenching, drying, appetizing summer ales and in that sense this does embody the essence of the saison style, which American craft brewers are apparently trying to master. I do not like to reduce a whole beer genre to just one brand, especially in this case, but anyone claiming to understand the saison genre without being familiar with this, is simply talking crap. Saison Dupont, using its own yeast culture since the 19th century, remains a landmark on the Belgian beer map. I have admired this brewery ever since I got to know it and so far, it hasn’t let me down. In short: crisp, sourishly dry, yeasty with a hint of sweetness at the start and bitterness in the end. A Belgian monument, and a must taste if you’re into craft beer culture.

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